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Nearly two years after a university asked for retractions, two journals have done nothing

How long should a retraction take?

That’s a complex question, of course, depending on how long the alleged issues with a paper take to be investigated, whether authors — and their lawyers — fight tooth-and-nail against a retraction, and other factors. But once a university officially requests a retraction, how long should one take?

The answer, for two journals who published work by cancer researcher Anil Jaiswal, is 22 months — and counting.

More than a year ago, we reported that from August 2016 until February 2017, the University of Maryland, Baltimore, requested 22 retractions of work by Jaiswal, in which they found evidence of inappropriate image manipulation. The university had also recommended that journals retract or correct four additional articles. (Jaiswal transitioned out of research last year; he retired from the university on November 1, 2017, according to a spokesperson.)

By April 2017, Jaiswal had 15 retractions. As of today, he has 16. That’s still shy of the 22 the University of Maryland requested, and it turns out that three journals — Cancer Research, Clinical Cancer Research, and Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, all published by the American Association for Cancer Research — have yet to do anything about seven articles the university requested be retracted. (Readers may recall a recent case in which a journal declined to retract a paper — this one by Paolo Macchiarini and colleagues — despite an institution’s request.)

The University of Maryland, Baltimore’s letter to Cancer Research was dated August 24, 2016, and requested five retractions:

We asked Chi Dang, the editor of Cancer Research, why the journal still hadn’t taken any action. Dang noted that he did not become editor until January of this year, so “the detailed history of this is beyond me at this time.”

However, I have been informed that several of Dr. Jaiswal’s papers will be retracted while several others are under the jurisdiction of Baylor College, which has been contacted by Cancer Research prior to our making a decision. Be assured, I treat these issues with great intensity and will dig deep into the issues and mitigate whatever that is needed. Since I have not had a chance to review the issues fully, I cannot tell you why there is a delay in retracting the papers in question other than the communication with Baylor. We believe that inclusion of the academic institutions in the dialogue is extremely important.

Baylor, however, tells Retraction Watch that the buck stops at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and that Cancer Research did not contact them until June of this year — some 21 months after the date of the University of Maryland, Baltimore, letter. According to a spokesperson:

When Dr. Anil Jaiswal left the employment of Baylor College of Medicine in July 2007, his grants transferred with him to the University of Maryland, along with all data associated with them.

We received an inquiry from Cancer Research on June 12, 2018, outlining concerns about the research associated with these grants. On June 27, 2018, our dean of research, Dr. Adam Kuspa, replied to Cancer Research that the grants had been transferred to the University of Maryland as well as all research materials supported by the two awards. As a result, we are not able to assess whether or not the allegations have substance or to open an inquiry, and he noted that any assessment, inquiry or investigation be conducted through his current awardee institution where these materials would be found.

I always use to say that a lot of journals are the first responsible for all the falsifications present in the papers. I have a really solid example for that. More than a year ago, I spotted on a journal a clear duplication in the manuscript. My expression of concern to the editorial board of the journal was ignored many times. I got a reply only from the handling editor which promised that an expression of concern will appear on the journal. Nothing happened and after other emails, editor replied that the paper will not be retracted as well not expression of concern because Karolinska investigation cleared off all the authors (all affiliated to KI). Skipping the fact that any investigation SHOULD BE PERFORMED by an external source and not the one to which the authors belong to, skipping that the try to defend the authors was pathetic and not prooved, I don`t see the reason why the journal can`t retract a paper independently from the investigation as long as they think data were manipulated (and manipulation was evident and also recognized by the handling editor). Truth is that the retraction of a paper is a damage not only for the authors but also for the journal so a lot of expression of concern brings to nothings and a lot of papers with evident data manipulation are out there untouched and uncorrected. Sad but true.

It’s all about money. The scientific value is of lower importance among publishers. This is hard to understand for journals under patient organizations like AACR. One may think that keeping the scholarly record correct would be their first priority due to advantages for scientific progress and benefit for the patients.

Thank you for pointing this out. I have examined the figures (flow diagrams in the composite) in question, and they do seem to be replicated. Be assured that experiments we published are independently replicated. I will attempt to dig back into the records with the authors to determine how this could have happened. This was clearly an oversight – that is unacceptable. I take full responsibility for this.

The data on TPI are what they were. If you read the science behind the data, there is no significant change in expression with MYC. Please check the literature; this finding remains to be the case. You could have picked other images as well for bands that appear identical. Unfortunately, this particular “problematic” data is probably picked up by image analysis using AI, which is imperfect. The fact that a human being posts this allegation anonymously behind the pseudonym of Fernando Pessoa is unfortunate, because it reflects that discretion using scientific knowledge and expertise was not exercised. This is shameful.

Thank you for pointing this out. The areas you highlighted in the composite figure for PFK1 do appear to have been replicated but represented as results from different experiments. This is an unacceptable lack of oversight on my part as principal investigator; I accept full responsibility. Please do note, notwithstanding this mistake, that our initial observations have been well extended and corroborated over the past two decades. But this is no excuse for poorly assembled figures. I appreciate the scrutiny and welcome any additional ones among our publications.

This article has been retracted at the request of the Office of Integrity of the University of Maryland due to data entered in Fig 3 of the publication that were not supported by raw data, in addition to the fact that the statistical evaluations were adultered.